


Apart: C-Side

by KakumeiNoHi



Series: The Stories of Winter and her Partner [13]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Atlas Academy, Canon Universe, F/F, RWBY - Freeform, Winter Schnee - Freeform, a bit of the oc's story, atlas academy headcanons, rwby canon universe, rwby fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27806443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KakumeiNoHi/pseuds/KakumeiNoHi
Summary: This runs parallel to the Apart Story Arc/Part 10 of the Series and narrates a day of Cassie Grey's holiday while Winter was at the manor.-----It was late in the afternoon when Cassie rematerialized into the double room.She had just picked up her weapon which she had dropped off at one of the academy’s facilities this morning. Cassie had spend the past two days cleaning and readjusting it herself in her shared room, but there was no way she could freshen up the paint here.She simply didn’t have the time to neatly remove the old and apply the new paint on her own. She also couldn’t do it without basically poisoning herself with the fumes in the room. And that’s even if she was to crack open a window the entire time and overnight and also risk freezing to death in her sleep.Cassie also would have had to go back to combat lessons without a weapon, because there was no way the paint would have completely dried in time by the end of the holidays.The Atlesian military however provided the academy with facilities that allowed her to simply drop off her weapon in the morning, input the paint job she wants done on a terminal and simply come back to pick it up all ready in the afternoon.
Relationships: Winter Schnee/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Stories of Winter and her Partner [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914799
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Apart: C-Side

It was late in the afternoon when Cassie rematerialized into the double room.

She had just picked up her weapon which she had dropped off at one of the academy’s facilities this morning. Cassie had spend the past two days cleaning and readjusting it herself in her shared room, but there was no way she could freshen up the paint here.

She simply didn’t have the time to neatly remove the old and apply the new paint on her own. She also couldn’t do it without basically poisoning herself with the fumes in the room. And that’s even if she was to crack open a window the entire time and overnight and also risk freezing to death in her sleep.

Cassie also would have had to go back to combat lessons without a weapon, because there was no way the paint would have completely dried in time by the end of the holidays.

The Atlesian military however provided the academy with facilities that allowed her to simply drop off her weapon in the morning, input the paint job she wants done on a terminal and simply come back to pick it up all ready in the afternoon.

Things like these were one of the main reasons she came to Atlas Academy to begin with. As the most affluent one of all of the combat schools it pretty much provided and paid for everything its students needed, within reason, of course.

Still they could easily get necessary weapon parts, armor, entire upgrades even. As long as they had good grades, excelled in practical combat and didn’t stand out because of bad behavior, students could benefit from Atlas’ advanced technology for free.

\-------------

Cassie wouldn’t consider herself poor by any means.

She had been saved and identified after her parent’s death which is why she was able to inherit their normal savings.

After that she had been taken in by her adoptive grandmother who had made sure that Cassie kept the money all saved while she was younger while grandma herself had provided for everything she needed and taught her how to use money responsibly.

By the time Cassie had been old enough for her grandmother to allow her combat training safely, the money had amounted to a rather significant amount that allowed her to easily spend it on a custom weapon, all kinds of training equipment, video and book tutorials and protective clothing.

These were the first things Cassie had insisted on spending her own money on, even though her grandmother Eleanor had offered to pay for those as well.

“But what if you need that money for something else later? You should keep it just to be safe.” she had said.

Grandma was always worrying too much. Especially when it came to Cassie, but never enough about herself however.

Still she had not once tried to talk Cassie out of becoming a Huntress, because she knew just how much her adoptive granddaughter had always wanted to become one.

In fact Grandma Eleanor would often even sit down on her rocking chair outside of their small house a little bit outside of town to watch Cassie train in the yard.

Grandma knew nothing at all about combat or aura use and even her knowledge about Grimm was basic, but still with her glasses on her nose she would be holding one of the books or the videos in her hand and eagerly comparing the pictures to Cassie’s movements. Every once in a while even pointing out anything she noticed being different and correcting her.

Cassie had sometimes wondered how her skills would have been if she had decided to leave her grandmother early on for a combat school, but in the end she would always realize how she might actually not be as good as she was today.

Mistral wasn’t kind to Faunus, Mistral combat schools and their students weren’t kind to Faunus. Even with Leonardo Lionheart as the headmaster of Haven, the biggest and most advanced one.

And as a young teenager even being surrounded by too many _friendly_ strangers would have had Cassie constantly riddled with panic and anxiety attacks. There was no way she would have been able to concentrate on her training and lessons if she had to deal with bullies and discrimination as well.

On her own, with only her grandmother and sometimes her brother around, Cassie had the chance to concentrate and completely dive into her training.

Not only that, she also had the chance to quickly get to use her skills in proper combat.

She still remembered the first time she had snuck out late at night to fight Grimm around the area and to test out what she had been practicing.

That day Cassie had stopped by the town’s bakery when she heard her uncle there talk about two Ursa which had been sighted around the area. She had gone home immediately after hearing that and spent the entire afternoon re-reading everything she had about Ursa.

Night came and she had grabbed her weapon to go out and look for them. It had taken her some time, but she had actually managed to find them. She had even managed to defeat them.  
But not only had this been the first time she fought Grimm, it had also been first time she had fought against any type of enemy at all and not just against dummies.

After what had happened to her as a child Cassie, astonishingly enough, had no fear in her. Instead she was ecstatic to be finally able to fight back.

But she also was still not used to dodging actively moving enemies and she was also not able to properly use her aura to brace herself and heal quickly.  
And so she ended up with a few broken ribs and luckily enough only a few scrapes.

When she had come back home that night her grandmother had been waiting in her room for her. She had wanted to check on her that night, something she would sometimes do due to Cassie’s nightmares and noticed how she had disappeared.

It was the first time Grandma had raised her voice and actually yelled at her.

She wasn’t even mad because Cassie had gone out to fight Grimm.

She had been mad because she had not only gone out in the middle of the night to do so, but because she had also kept it a secret and not told anybody about it. If anything had happened to her nobody would have known how to even look for her.

Grandma had taken and locked her weapon away for a month and Cassie had to spend every day of that month helping out her brother’s parents at the bakery. Which meant waking up at ungodly hours, carrying around heavy crates while her ribs were still healing at a much slower rate than they would these days and making deliveries.

That was deliveries without her bike, since Grandma Eleanor had also confiscated the keys for that.

To still be able to keep up with the deliveries however Cassie had been using her semblance to get around to places. It was also during that time that she had discovered that she could also only fade _parts_ of herself around.

At the time Cassie had simply been wallowing in the misery of her punishment. In hindsight however her grandmother’s tough love had taught her how to use her semblance not only differently, but also more efficiently and quickly.

Which in combat translated to Cassie now being able to additionally dodge by simply avoiding hits and fading away more quickly or just partially. And after she had been required to use her semblance to get around over some distances in quick succession for a month, Cassie was then also able to get herself to complete safety, further away, a lot quicker.

When she had asked her grandmother some time later if she had chosen her punishment on purpose because of the training it would give her, she had only chuckled.

“I don’t know enough about fighting to do that.”

Cassie didn’t really believed her. But she had afterwards allowed her to go after Grimm as long as she would do it during daytime and as long as she would keep in contact and call her before actually engaging and the moment she saw them.

She also had to promise to bite the bullet and run away the moment she would be in over her head. No matter what.

\-------------

 _Fenrir._ Cassie held up her weapon, flicked her wrist and pushed the buttons and watched her halberd almost instantly stretch out. She pushed another button in, the axe blade slid down and she grabbed the inside the moment it hit the middle of the shaft.  
Two clicks and it split and the shaft and blade parts folded and shifted into her bladed tonfas. Another flick and button push on each side and they folded back into her firearms.

Cassie kept changing, holstering and drawing her weapon for a couple more times, until she almost had to force herself to stop.

During maintenance she had changed the adjustment of all of the springs and slides and the fact that she was now able to keep up with the new speed her weapon changed in made her all giddy with excitement.

At some point she really would have to order a complete overhaul, since the entire length would have to be adjusted to her height as well, but for now she was more than happy with what she was able to do herself and she wanted to wait until she was tall enough for the overhaul to really pay off and last for quite some time again.

She had also stopped to take a closer look at the new paint. The previous black and silver had been completely removed, reapplied and polished and Cassie had also wanted to add a new third color.

The edge of her silver axe blade was now subtly white, the same white would also be on her tonfa blades and there were also strips of white all around the shaft which would then be visible on her gun barrels.

Cassie wondered about what her partner was going to think about the change and blushed a little. Winter might not even notice and she didn’t have to.  
After all Cassie had done this for herself really. She wanted to pay some respect to her partner whose training had advanced her as far as this.

Cassie sighed. This was the third day she hadn’t seen Winter and now that she had nothing left to really distract herself with, she started to feel lonely.

She had been keeping to herself and been busy with her weapon for the most part, but just having Winter around, sensing her aura nearby was something she missed. Cassie missed being able to simply drop to lean on her whenever she was exhausted or stressed and she missed how Winter would timidly lean back into her.

She also missed her partner’s snide remarks whenever she tried to hide how much she liked something and she missed watching her partner taste her own cooking so very earnestly, puzzled as to why she simply couldn't get it to taste as well as Cassie’s. And she missed watching Winter enjoy herself whenever she was free to just go all out during combat lessons.

Cassie also missed teasing her for getting distracted and annoyed by details nobody else would care about and she missed Winter constantly fussing about and fixing Cassie’s clothes and uniform, even when there was nothing wrong with them, simply to have an excuse to touch and nag her a little.

She felt lonely and she just wanted to find her partner’s aura, latch on to it and fade to her side. But not only did she not even know how far the manor was from the academy, she also couldn’t just simply crash to her partner’s home like that. And it’s not like she could feel her this far away anyway. Her ‘radar‘ had gotten better since she had entered Atlas Academy, but there was still such a thing as pushing the limits of her ability.

And while she had been steadily improving she had also been struggling to significantly evolve it, it wasn’t like it was a semblance.

Moments like this made Cassie miss her mother who had the same ability as herself and who would have been able to shed some more light about it. Cassie after all was convinced that her mother must have been holding back on a few things, simply because her daughter had been a small child and she wanted to slowly teach her as to not overwhelm her.

And at some point if she wanted to evolve on that end, Cassie was sure that she had to swallow the _very_ bitter pill and go find her relatives on her mother’s side. If her blood-related grandmother was still alive she was bound to be able to teach her about their aura sensitivity, Cassie also didn’t really know about any possible aunts that could.

She sighed when she suddenly heard a knock on the door and started to walk towards it to unlock it.

Cassie opened the door and narrowed her eyes in confusion.

_Nobody?_

She was just about to close it again, thinking that somebody must have been simply bored and pranked her when from the bottom of her eyes she noticed a reddish-blond cat tail upright and hocked at the same height as her hips.

She looked down to find a short-haired young man kneeling on the floor, his legs folded underneath his thighs, his hands on the floor in front of his knees and his head lowered on top of them.

“I am friendly and I come in comradery, oh great and wise one.”

Cassie rolled her eyes and mercilessly kicked him lightly to have him raise his head.

“What do you want and what did you do, Toby?”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Tobias Hyatt. One of the few other Faunus in her year, a cat Faunus to be precise.

Cassie didn’t have many classes with him during the week, but she did spend all of her Friday classes together with him and his partner and they had become rather chummy.

Tobias looked unreliable and he was loud and boisterous, because he took great pride in being a Huntsman in training. But unlike various of those rich brats who attended the academy, he also actually put a lot of effort into being one.

He trained hard and studied hard. His grades still sucked big time for the most part, because he was simply a moron nonetheless, but he had a good heart. He was trying and he was pretty good during actual combat.

Toby was from Vale, within the occasional stuffiness of Atlas a lot of fun to be around and underneath all of his bluster actually rather considerate and kind.

Cassie still remembered how he had first approached her carefully during one of the breaks in between lessons asking if she was okay, after having noticed her making a strained face and rubbing her temples for a moment. She had been a little overwhelmed that day, on the verge of a panic induced headache and her partner wasn’t around to help her calm down.  
That time however Toby’s aura had been so loud that once he stood in front of Cassie to check on her, it ended up simply drowning out all of the other ones, allowing her to have a moment of clearness.

Back then the young man had even wanted to carry her to the infirmary if it hadn’t been for his partner who had slowed down his enthusiasm after Tobias wouldn’t listen to Cassie assuring him that she really was okay again.

This Tobias was now sitting on the floor looking up to her and trying to butter her up.

“Did you upset Sai again?”

Unlike his partner, Saito Jin was a mild-mannered young man with dark gray hair, soft facial features and a quiet laugh.  
He was very much a complete opposite to his loud reddish-blond partner and together the two couldn’t be more of a cliched odd pair.

“I didn’t! And what’s with the 'again'?”

He seemed very adamant about defending himself. Cassie narrowed her eyes in suspicion at him and he crumbled.

“Not yet anyway….”

Cassie stepped back to close the door, but Toby jolted up slightly and slammed his hand against it to keep it open.

“Okay look, I may or may not have ruined his favorite shirt because I put it in the wrong laundry pile when I dropped everything off.”

Cassie sighed.

“So what does this have to do with me?”

“I want to get him a new one, but I don’t know what Mistral clothes are like and you’re from Mistral just like him. Please, help a pal out!  
I’ll show you a place that has Mistral food around here. You must be missing that stuff. Sai told me about it and he likes it, so it has to be authentic and super good. Please!”

He clung onto her legs and Cassie gave in. She couldn’t complain about feeling lonely but turn him down like this when he asks to hang out. Even if his reasons were slightly self-serving.

“Fine, just come in. I need to change first.”

Since it had been a holiday and barely anybody had been around Cassie, like most students who have stayed at the Academy, had been spending her days in her Atlas Academy loungewear.  
It’s not like they were required to wear their uniforms during that time anyway since General Jimmy had decided that they should be at least somewhat comfortable if they couldn’t go back to their homes.

He wanted the academy to be like their second home instead. And so the corridors were filled with the remaining students in Atlas Academy hoodies, sweaters, sweatpants or even shorts and leggings or tights.

Tobias stood up and walked into the room. Cassie closed the door and went towards the closet to take out some fresh clothes while he went to sit down on one of the desk-chairs.

“Wuaah, I’m in a girl’s room. You girls are so tidy.”

“Well, Winter keeps it that way mostly, really. I don’t care all that much. Besides aren’t your other teammates two girls?

“Well, yeah, but they don’t count. We’re all in the same room after all.”

“That’s a fair point, I guess.”

Cassie took her hoodie off.

“Woah, hey, I’m in the room.”

Tobias covered his eyes and Cassie threw her hoodie at him.

“I’m wearing a t-shirt underneath, you moron. And stop pretending like you would actually care.”

She rolled her eyes and Toby giggled.

“Hey, I may not be interested, but that doesn’t mean that I would be okay with seeing all kinds of lady bits hanging around in places.”

He shuddered dramatically and Cassie cracked up.

“Alright, I can see that and I mean it’s not like I’m okay actually undressing in front of you. Anyway, put my hoodie on top of my bed, please. I want to wear it again tonight.”

She had walked toward the closet to pick out her clothes and stepped closer. Toby was about to just throw her hoodie towards the beds.

“Top bunk, Toby.”

Cassie was trying to decide on whether to wear a sweater or a shirt to go out.

“Yours is the top bunk?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmmm.”

She didn’t even have to look at him to know how he had been tilting his head with his hand on the chin.

“Hmmmmmm.”

“Spit it out, Tobias.”

“No, no, wait. I can’t decide yet…..then again, you and Winter both seem rather versatile actually.”

Cassie immediately felt heat rising up towards her face.

“Just what are you talking about?” She knew _exactly_ what he was talking about.

“Really, Grey? I haven’t been around the both of you at the same time a lot. But it doesn’t take a genius to notice the energy between the two of you.”

“We’re partners. Why wouldn’t there be some energy between us?”

“Oh, stop playing dumb. You can’t keep your hands of her at all and the Ice Queen is constantly fussing about you. Everybody knows she tolerates only you.”

“Don’t call Winter that.”

She turned around and shot a sharp look at him.

“And she’s perfectly nice if you don’t try to suck up to her.”

“Fine, I won’t call her ‘Ice Queen’ anymore. But you have to admit that she only truly warms and softens around you. Everybody else has been noticing this as well.”

Cassie remained silent.

“For real now, Cassie...are you two really not a couple?”

Tobias was no longer goading. His voice was honest and puzzled.

“She’s my partner, Toby. Would you start a relationship with Sai?”

This time it was Tobias who stayed quiet. A few seconds passed for it to finally click with Cassie.

“Really?” Her eyes widened in surprise. “Tobias, are you serious?”

He looked to the side, now blushing slightly.

“Since when?” She really hadn’t noticed anything different between the two.

“A while ago.” his voice was timid.

“Woooow.”

But while Cassie was both surprised and truly happy for him, she also still wanted to tease her friend who had suddenly gotten all shy on her.

“I really would have thought Saito had better taste.”

“Hey!”

Cassie walked up to the cat Faunus who started to pout to the side and tried to ruffle through his hair, but he only brushed her off.

“Go away.”

“I’m only joking.” she chuckled “Good for you.”

“Yeah, well and here I am ruining his clothes…” he sounded defeated.

“Honestly, I’m sure he won’t even care about something like a shirt.”

“You really think so?”

“You should have more faith in your partner.”

“So what about you then? You think Winter would turn you down?”

“I…” Cassie struggled with her words.

“I don’t even really know what I want, Toby. How should I know about Winter?”

“Oh, well...I mean...but still…”

“Still what?”

“Are you really trying to tell me that you would shower anybody with the same kind of affection you shower her with?”

“Well…the two of us are kinda close though, aren’t we? I’m nicer to you than to anybody else.”

“You kicked me while I was on my knees begging for your help like just five minutes ago! Don’t you dare deny your preferential treatment! You totally treat her differently to me!”

“Of course she’s special to me! I lo-”

Cassie stopped and froze.

Tobias who had also frozen, but in slight surprise only, had regained his composure a lot quicker than Cassie and he was grinning smugly.

“Oh? Keep talking, Grey. Don’t stop now...” he cackled. “Hmm, 'special' you say? Well, of course she is if you lo-”

Cassie had thrown one of her ankle boots at him, Toby had only caught it and continued to giggle.

“I hate you.” Cassie was flustered. He had tricked her. So casually too.

Her clothes in hand Cassie turned to walk into the bathroom and she slammed the door behind herself.

She stopped for a moment by the door only to slowly sink down to the floor and put her face into her hands. She was bright red and her heart was pounding in a speed she never would have thought possible.

 _Crap._ She really does love her partner after all, doesn’t she?


End file.
